HPD promotes Brafford to Lt.

 The Huntersville Police Department has promoted Sgt. Kirstie Brafford to the rank of police lieutenant. The promotion becomes effective May 28, when Brafford will be assigned as a patrol watch commander in charge of one of the four patrol watches of the Field Services Bureau.

Something new, something proposed and something caught in county government’s craw were topics of discussion at the Huntersville Town Board session Monday night.

Ongoing adjustment to — along with confusion about and aggravation stemming from — the newly implemented “quad left” traffic pattern at the N.C. 73/U.S. 21 intersection near I-77 Exit 25 constituted the new; plans for what could grow to be a 70,000-square-foot, 120-bed private medical care facility off Boren Street represented the proposed; and what the town can do to take a more active role in the debate surrounding county revaluation rounded out the auxiliary topics.

Many turns

Three questions from Commissioner Charles Jeter — what’s the status of the work at N.C. 73/U.S. 21?; who actually owns and is responsible for maintenance on Holly Point Drive?; and how long do we wait before determining if this works or doesn’t work? — triggered a 30-minute back-and-forth between commissioners and town traffic engineer Justin Carroll.

Carroll reported that for “all intents and purposes” road construction by Blythe Development is complete and that most of the remaining work involves collection of traffic-directing cones and barrels and the synchronization of traffic lights. Carroll also said, according to the initial agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Holly Point Drive — the connector road between N.C. 73 and U.S. 21 used in place of now-prohibited left-hand turns at the intersection — would become a state-maintained road, although that transition has not yet occurred and the road is still the town’s responsibility.

The final question, however, didn’t have a clear-cut answer and fueled the most reaction. Carroll said the town signed off on NCDOT’s plan for the revamped intersection and, while the town can make suggestions and ask for tweaks, the ultimate decision-making authority belongs to the NCDOT.

All commissioners said they’ve received complaints and negative comments about the intersection — some from motorists and others from owners of businesses near the intersection — but Commissioner Danny Phillips was the most animated at Monday’s meeting.

“It’s very dangerous,” Phillips said, “and I don’t want to see somebody get killed out there.”

Phillips said truck drivers are having trouble negotiating the route, and that the new traffic pattern is causing confusion among drivers.

“We know it’s broken,” Phillips said. “We know it’s not working. The equipment is still there, we need to fix it now.”

Carroll suggested that once all the construction materials are removed and drivers have the opportunity to adjust to the new arrangement, problems and confusion will taper off.

“I guess it’s about a six-month process,” Carroll said. “It will take some time.”

Carroll acknowledged commissioners’ comments about complaints from business owners in the area around the intersection, and offered insight into the various perspectives involved.

“Access is in the eye of the beholder,” Carroll said. “It’s one thing to the state and another to the people who run those businesses.”

He said the state’s priority is to move traffic through the intersection and on that measure, the project got high marks.

“It’s working,” Commissioner Ron Julian said. Added Commissioner Sarah McAulay, “I think it’s working pretty good.”

And Commissioner Charles Guignard couldn’t stop himself once he started his appraisal of the project. “It ain’t perfect,” Guignard said, “but, oh my I need to be careful here, once you get past Stumptown (going north on Highway 21), you can speed if you want to. It’s working.”

New medical facility

A June 4 public hearing on a rezoning request is the next step for Huntersville Health & Rehabilitation’s plan to build a congregate housing facility on 6.5 acres on Boren Street in Business Park West.

The project, as proposed, would be located on two vacant tracks south of Kincey Avenue. The first phase would be a 55,000-square-foot, 90-bed facility with space for a 15,000-square-foot, 30-bed addition. Drawings submitted to the planning department indicate that the one-story building would have a multiple-compartment design spread out like a tic-tac-toe board with a courtyard in the center.

Huntersville Health & Rehabilitation is affiliated with Charlotte-based Medical Facilities of North Carolina, part of Roanoke, Va.,-based Medical Facilities of America, a 41-year-old private company that owns and operates nursing homes and specializes in therapeutic services, including post-surgical care, and residential rehabilitation care.

For its plan to comply with Huntersville’s zoning guidelines, Huntersville H&R is seeking a rezoning from Highway Commercial-Conditional District to Neighborhood Commercial-Conditional District.

Lights out Saturday night in Cornelius

ElectriCities customers in Cornelius will experience a maintenance-related power outage from 11:55 p.m. Saturday, May 19 until around 8 a.m. Sunday, May 20. The outage, estimated by ElectriCities officials to be no more than eight hours, is needed to install a new transformer, breakers, regulators, relays and other equipment.  The required installation and equipment replacement is part of the follow-up work resulting from the November 2011 substation fire that damaged major equipment in the substation.

Variety of musical styles by high school musicians will be on stage at Rural Hill Friday night.

Friday night, the stage at Historic Rural Hill will belong to guitar gladiators, drum demons and bass-blasting boomers from area high schools as five bands put their musical mastery to the test in pursuit of bragging rights as 2012 champion of the Trifecta Battle of the Bands.

Carolinas HealthCare System didn't have to go far to find a new location for its proposed 66-bed behavioral health hospital.

And, in choosing a 23-acre site in Davidson, the healthcare giant didn't have to put in too much effort to send a message to Huntersville, which rejected a rezoning request in March that would have allowed CHS to construct the facility on land it owns at the corner of N.C. 115 and Verhoeff Drive.

Those focusing on the warm, fuzzy side of the municipal budget proposal Huntersville Town Manager Greg Ferguson unveiled Monday night could say — despite a spike in police department expenditures tied to the acquisition of a new headquarters and a one-time payment related to switching 911 dispatch services — the town can make ends meet for the next fiscal year without implementing a property tax rate increase.

Cornelius commissioners are doing their best to hold to their pledge of a revenue-neutral property tax rate in the wake of last year's Mecklenburg County property revaluation. With a constantly moving target to shoot at, commissioners set a rate of 25 cents per $100 valuation last year, and came in with about $2 million in revenue above and beyond what the town needed in fiscal year 2012.